Open Education Week Workshop 2024

More than 360 online webinar participants and 80 physical attendees participated on Friday, 8 March 2023, in the 11th edition of the Open Education & Science Workshop, an international event dedicated to the challenges and opportunities in open science and education, hosted by Politehnica University Timisoara, through the Department of ID/IFR and Digital Education.

Together with the E³UDRES² Alliance of European Universities and the Ent-r-e-novators project, with the support of IEEE Romania, this year's Open Education Week 2024, supported by Open Education Global, brought together 11 renowned specialists from Romania, the Netherlands, Latvia, Austria, Portugal and Belgium. Their presentations focused on various aspects of Open Science and Open Education practices, tools and methods and how they can be integrated into everyday life, with an emphasis on the context of academia, research projects and education in general. Interesting discussions and pointed questions took place in panels that brought presenters together in a hybrid fashion at the end of each presentation session.

The event was dedicated to the teaching community from all academic spheres, as well as to students, IT trainers or HR departments, and was a real success in terms of the increased interest that the scientific and academic community brought to the collective community, gathering people who spent more than six hours with the organisers in an interactive session, with many questions and curiosities addressed to the presenters or to the different experts who attended the workshop. The audience was diverse, so that the online event enjoyed participants not only from Romania, but also from Austria, Belgium, Latvia, Portugal and the Netherlands, who actively participated in the workshop, initiating discussions with the speakers, but also exchanging data and information about best practices in their own institutions and the approaches they have implemented using open science and open education.

The workshop topics included:

• Presentations on the European projects E³UDRES² and Ent-r-e-novators, to understand the context and objectives of these European initiatives promoting open practices and university cooperation;
• Challenges and opportunities in implementing Open Science practices;
• Using Open Educational resources to improve teaching and learning;
• Open Science, and the role of Open pedagogies and emerging technologies;
• The impact of generative Artificial Intelligence on Open Education.

"We believe that free access to knowledge and educational resources is essential for the progress of society, and this workshop contributes significantly to promoting the fundamental principles of open science and open education,", said Prof. dr. eng. Radu Vasiu a few words about the organization of this year's edition.

Luís Coelho, Ent-r-e-novators project coordinator, professor at the Polytechnic Institute of Setubal, Portugal, said: "This workshop is very important for our university members, E³UDRES² alliance, researchers, PhD students and professors, because it presents the latest issues in Open Science, but it is also the result of the research and analysis done in the first year of the project. Thus, it has emerged how important it is to train our members in promoting fair and ethical principles of science, but also how they can produce innovation in the regions.”

The event took place in the K1 room, the Conference Centre of Politehnica University Timisoara, but also online on the Zoom platform, and was broadcast live on Facebook. Attendance was free, presentations were in English and participants received Open Education Workshop Participant Open Badges (Open Digital Certificates) online and in addition, Certificates of Attendance for physical participants in the room, issued by UPT with IEEE Romania validation.

"This year's Open Education & Science Workshop was a real success, demonstrating the increased interest in the field of science and open education. The presentation by leading experts of the latest trends and best practices contributed significantly to stimulating dialogue and identifying innovative solutions to current challenges encountered both in academia and in everyday life; from the impact that the role that open education and open pedagogies have on emerging technologies, to the impact that Artificial Intelligence has on open education. I enjoyed the slightly adversarial discussions as they allowed for the explanation, with real examples, of concepts that may otherwise seem abstract and not of interest to each of us. But in actual practice, every educator, researcher and student has daily activities that contain elements of open practice. ", said Dr. Diana Andone, Director of the Department of DI/IFR and Digital Education and coordinator of these workshops.

Presentations and materials from this year's edition will be available on the UniCampus.ro platform to facilitate open access to information, thus supporting the continued development of academic, technological, technical and scientific spheres, including open practice approaches that people can use in their daily lives.

https://unicampus.ro/

Politehnica University of Timisoara - valuable contributions in Open Education

Politehnica University of Timisoar, through the Digital & Distance Education Department has been making valuable contributions to Open Education Week and the ideals of this event since 2013, by hosting annual workshops organized with the aim of promoting collaborations and creating educational networks.